Understanding DRM libraries

A library is a collection of objects that can be shared between different product versions.

Libraries can be created to store legal statements, trademarks, variables, error messages, list of terms, etc. Libraries can be shared between different product versions. They have their own release cycle, which can be different from the release cycles of the products.

Note: DRM libraries are very much like the libraries used in computer programs.

Consider a library that stores the legal statements used for all the products in your company. It includes logos, trademarks, copyrights, etc. The legal statements are updated every year to specify a new year in the copyright statement. For this use case you could create a Legal statement library that will be used by all your products. When you update the legal statements, they are updated automatically in all the products that use this library.

Just like products, libraries include releases and versions. The following diagram shows how libraries could be implemented for the IXIASOFT legal statements:

There are three releases for the IXIA_Legal library: 2013, 2014, and 2015. In the 2013 release, one version was created, called 2013-01-01, for the 2013 copyright statements. In the 2014 releases, two versions were created: one called 2014-01-01 to update the copyright statements to 2014 and one called 2014-05-01 when IXIASOFT updated its branding. A new release was created in 2015, called 2015-01-01, to update the copyright statements to the current year.

Working with libraries

You can make libraries available for use with product versions by adding the libraries to the product versions. IXIA CCMS Desktop then adds the library to the version and the map can reference any object or element in the library.

For example, consider the IXIA_Legal library. This library is used by the CMS and TEXTML Server products. Every map in the CMS and TEXTML Server products uses the same copyright topic from the library.

The following diagram shows how this is implemented in the DRM. In this example, two maps in two different products use the IXIA_Legal library:

The CMS Quick Start map for the 4.0.1 version references the IXIA_Legal_2015-01-01 library.
The TEXTML Server What's New map for the 4.3.5.4 version also references the IXIA_Legal_2015-01-01 library.

As these maps get released on their own release schedules, the version of the library stays the same, so all maps continue to reference the 2013 copyrights until the library is updated.